Re: OT - Grant Hill retires I really haven't looked at his numbers, but given how long he played, i wonder if they're good enough to be in discussion for the HOF? He kinda reminds me of Charles Woodson in football. Some isolated runs of elite play scattered with middling.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires I don't think so for HOF. Injuries derailed that. Just like Roy won't be in HOF.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires Since the basketball HoF isn't just NBA but includes college he will be a shoe in.
His last couple seasons at Detroit he was one of the best 7 or 8 players in the game, he was cold! Sent from HCPs Baller-Ass iPhone 5...FAMS!
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires This. Until he hurt his ankle, Hill was easily one of the best in the game. He was silky smooth. It was sad that he never got a chance to play in Orlando. Hill in his prime with a young T-Mac? Holy shit that would have been sick.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires You know, I was thinking the same thing, and I can see the committee using that technicality to put him in, but if they really valued NCAA performance just as much as NBA performance, wouldn't Christian Laettner also be HOF worthy? Hill won two titles in his first two years at Duke, but Laettner was the real star of those teams. When he left, Hill had a couple of good years, but Duke didn't win another title until '01. I mean, really, there's a relatively long list of guys who'd deserve to go in over Hill they're considering him strictly for his NCAA career.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires Hill and Nash could have played into their 50's in Phoenix, but a year after leaving both are washed up.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires I have to wonder if Hill had any left in the tank. He actually came off the bench and hit some huge shots and a couple of blocks to get LAC the win over MEM, not in the series, but in one of the last games of the season, essentially game one of the series, where they locked up homecourt advantage over us.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires Agreed. Take away the NCAA's.... Hill is just another player on the brink of superstardom whose career never materialized and reached its full potential due to injuries. We're left wondering "What if?" Same thing as Roy (though Hill's longevity, ultimately was far greater - he just lost his overall potential trajectory to injuries, rather than his entire career). So sad. I was always a huge Grant Hill fan.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires Grant Hill was on TNT's coverage last night of the Heat/Pacer game, and raised in interesting point. He feels he came back too early from serious injuries more than once, and has been very public in his support of Derrick Rose's decision to not return this season. After watching Brandon Roy try to tough it out way too soon after knee issues, I tend to agree with Hill at this point. Even if the knee is "healed", typically the muscles are not for quite some time. I also think OKC made the right call by shelving Russell Westbrook, and basically conceding this season in doing so.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires Grant Hill's first few years were HOF. Plus, he was a choirboy PC superstar. His last 10 years were as shocking as Oden returning for 10 years would be. Everyone thoight Hill would never be back.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires I hate to sound like a broken record on this one, but I wonder if Kevin Durant isn't going to be in this conversation years from now. The biggest question mark with Durant in the draft was his frame. Now people look back and make fun of those concerns, but looking at the injuries that legends like Hill, Hardaway, and McGrady suffered, they were all further along in their careers than the point Durant is at now. Just because he hasn't had "the big one" yet doesn't prove the doubters wrong. It'll be interesting to see if his productivity can be sustainable with his frame. Also, speaking of Penny, if Hill is a first-ballot HOF'er, where does that leave Penny, who had a similar career trajectory?
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires Hill's early years were much better than Penny's. You ARE talking about the girl who sat next to me in 2nd grade, right?
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires If my mom named me Anfernee, I think I'd go by "Penny" as well. (Really Mrs. Hardaway?! Thanks for setting the city of Memphis back a hundred years.) I guess I've got him on the brain, because I'm going to see him golf tomorrow and get my old Penny jersey from his Magic days signed (the guy's also apparently a scratch golfer... we'll see tomorrow). Still, I wouldn't say Hill's first few years were that much better, if they even were better at all. Just because Penny's been removed from the game for so long, I think a lot of people forget how good he actually was. For example, Penny Hardaway was a two time All-NBA First Team performer (in his second and third years in the NBA), whereas Hill only earned that honor once. How many players have been All-NBA First Teamers in their 2nd and 3rd years in the NBA? I'm sure Penny's in elite company... Hill and Hardaway's numbers are actually pretty comparable across the board. I just think Hill has always been more likeable for whatever reason and accessible to the average fan. I also think that if they bring college careers into it, Penny's got just as much of a case as Hill does. One guy played second/third fiddle to Laettner and Thomas Hill in his first two seasons when he was on the Duke title teams, and after that, the guy played with one of the best PG's in NCAA history, who was arguably the best player on the team (Hurley), but he couldn't get another title without Laettner. The other guy was the go-to option in his two years of college and led Memphis to the Elite Eight as a freshman, carrying the entire load. Statistically, Penny also did more in his two years than Hill did in his first two... the only thing is that Hill played for Duke and Hardaway played for Memphis, so we remember Hill's career more fondly.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires Penny is the nickname for Penelope. Hill's game was a thing of beauty. At SF, he shot outside and drove inside. But he was a great point-SF. He dribbled around like a PG, looking for a play to set up. He would make the perfect pass from 3 point territory on the left, right through opponents' arms, to the shooter way over on the right baseline, who would put it in. It seemed like a planned play. He created many plays like that each game. He controlled the game, mentally, powerfully. If you're thinking Pippen, don't. Pippen's game was a midget of Hill's.
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires Hey, you don't need to tell me about Hill's game man... he was one of the guys that got me into watching basketball as a kid. I'm just saying that if Hill should be considered, so should Penny. It's funny, because my brother and I were going through some old boxes a couple of weeks ago at our pop's house, with the intent of pawning some stuff for Grizz Finals tickets (don't need to point out the irony in that one either, because the Spurs series still stings haha), and we found four old jerseys we had from the early 90's - Haradaway, Hill, Kidd, and Barkley. Point is, I grew up learning to love the game by watching both Hill and Hardaway play. I more than appreciate Hill's career, but I just think that if you're talking HOF for him, then why not talk HOF for Hardaway? To me, the case to be made for Hill shouldn't be made in terms of "Hill vs. the HOF field" but rather "Hill vs. Hardaway."
Re: OT - Grant Hill retires 1065 341 One of those is the amount of games Grant Hill played, and the other one is the amount of games Brandon Roy played.
